


all my heart became a tear, all my soul became a tower,

by MetaAllu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I have night terrors and ptsd dont @ me, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Post-Season/Series 06, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slash pre-slash or gen. Whatever you prefer., Tagging it as gen just cause it's not explicitly anything else., This is a blatant vent piece, Trauma, Vomiting, it gets a bit narsty js, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 03:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15548994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetaAllu/pseuds/MetaAllu
Summary: Keith lurches awake, hands twisted in the sheets, which are wrapped around him, a tangled mess.  Frantically, he kicks and pulls until he’s free, sitting up and rolling out of bed.  He stumbles into the bathroom of the space motel he’s in, fumbling the door shut and slapping the light on with the flat of his palm, before pulling his shirt over his head, staring down his own reflection.  His eyes are bloodshot, with dark circles, and there are bandages up and down his body, but there is no blood, and there is no glass.





	all my heart became a tear, all my soul became a tower,

**Author's Note:**

> “I don’t want to suffer any longer and I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”  
> — Edna St. Vincent Millay

The world feels like it’s moving in slow motion, while simultaneously moving so quickly that he can barely register the glass falling all around him, the sick-bad-terrifying feeling of the world slipping out from under his feet, and he is staring into eyes that see a target as blood stains his hair, fills his burning lungs.  He can feel mottled bruises on his back, an ache in his spine, one of his eyes swelling, and his skin is aflame, too sharp in the foggy fugue state he’s in as fat hunks of glass embed into his skin.

He looks down at his hands, vision blurring as he stumbles down, falling onto his belly and grasping desperately for something,  _ anything  _ to hang onto, rubble and stray pieces of furniture and equipment tumbling past him.  His eyes burn, his arms burn, he wants to scream, but he opens his mouth, and he tries and nothing comes out, and nothing comes out, and  _ god _ ,  _ nothing comes out _ .

Keith lurches awake, hands twisted in the sheets, which are wrapped around him, a tangled mess.  Frantically, he kicks and pulls until he’s free, sitting up and rolling out of bed. He stumbles into the bathroom of the space motel he’s in, fumbling the door shut and slapping the light on with the flat of his palm, before pulling his shirt over his head, staring down his own reflection.  His eyes are bloodshot, with dark circles, and there are bandages up and down his body, but there is no blood, and there is no glass.

His lungs feel like they are on fire, still, and his hand comes up to press against his chest, knuckles dragging over his heart, which is a frantic hummingbird trapped in the cage of his ribs.  A wave of breathless wooziness washes over him, and he hangs his head, forcing himself to breathe, counting the in, out.

“Keith?”

How long has he been standing here?

“Hey, Keith.  It’s okay. Look at me.”

When did the sink drain get so blurry?  When did his arms start to feel so weak?  His gut is roiling, stabbing pain in his abdomen, and when he lifts his head, his body rebels.  He lurches, and leans back over the sink, hunching his shoulders as his angry body tries to physically empty the pain, sorrow, bone deep terror.

A hand, blessedly cool, comes between his hunched shoulder blades, fingertips against the sweat-soaked nape of his neck.  Then it sweeps his bangs out of his eyes and he retches again. He barely ate at dinner, so it’s mostly acid, burning his nose, tearing at his throat and the roof of his mouth and he can hear himself sob, miserable and unable to control everything his mind is trying to process.

“I know, honey.  It’s okay. I’m here.”

It takes too long before he regains a modicum of control over his body.  There is glass in his lungs, and glass in his arms, and just lifting his head feels like it takes forever, vision swimming.  

Shiro meets his eyes in the shitty motel mirror, hand still on the nape of his neck.  He tries to smile, and Keith laughs at him, the sound of it too-loud in the small bathroom, bouncing off the tiles and tearing at his throat like metal, like hands, like steel and warmth and the smell of alien alloy--

“Sorry.”

“I was awake anyway.”

Keith can’t tell anymore if it’s a lie.

“You need rest,” he tells Shiro’s reflection.  A hand-- _ the  _ hand--comes up, running  through the all-white hair, and he looks away, smile faltering.

“So do you.”

“Yes.  Well.” Motioning to the sink or the circles under his eyes or his shirtless abandoned on the floor and the bandages on his body is pointless.  It’s an old argument. It’s been circling the drain for weeks now, but neither of them is quite willing to pull the plug, even being fully aware that the other party will never fully concede they’re point.

Shiro snorts.

“I think I’m done vomiting at least,” he offers, and olive branch in the too-bitter, too-sweet, cloying, metallic, burning lungs environment they’ve created in the cramped space of the bathroom.

“Then you can at least lie down and pretend you’re going to take care of yourself for me.  I think you owe me that at least, don’t you?” Shiro teases, lips curving up again. He doesn’t owe Shiro anything less than his life, and at the same time, he owes him nothing.  At the same time, they both know Shiro should be on his knees.

Keith grunts and washes his mouth out with water before walking back into the room they’re sharing--Lance and Hunk are next door, Pidge and Allura on the other side, and Coran alone in a room of his own after that--and sitting down on his bed.  The beds are huge, and the space between them is negligible, which makes it that much more awkward when Shiro squeezes himself between the two beds and tucks Keith in like he’s still a kid.

“Shiro,” he says, tone exasperated as Shiro pushes his bangs back again, smiling down at him.  Then, he reaches out and curls a hand in Shiro’s sleeve. “Shiro,” he says again, and then, “Takashi.”

Shiro’s hand goes still, other than a restless thumb that goes in slow circles.

“Budge over.”

Keith makes a show of grumbling as he shifts over to make room for the other man, but when Shiro wraps him up and pulls him in, he goes, eyes sliding half closed, breathing in the familiar smell.

They don’t talk, sure as hell don’t talk about it, but Keith goes gradually still, and Shiro closes his eyes, nose buried in Keith’s hair, and stays there.


End file.
